Xifeng Wu 吴息凤

Dean and Professor of School of Public Health,

Vice President of the Second Affiliated Hospital,

Director of the National Institute for Data Science in Health and Medicine,

Zhejiang University, China

Former Director, Center for Public Health and Translational Genomics,

Professor, Department of Epidemiology at the MD Anderson Cancer

Center (MDACC)

Dr. Xifeng Wu is Dean and Professor of School of Public Health, Vice President of The Second Affiliated Hospital, Director of National Institute for Data Science in Health and Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. She joined Zhejiang University in March 2019.Dr. Wu is also a naturalized U.S. citizen. She was Director, Center for Public Health and Translational Genomics and Professor, Department of Epidemiology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston. Dr. Wu was subjected to multi-year harassment and investigations. She was put on administrative leave for over a year. During that time, she was not allowed to return to her research laboratory, talk to researchers in her research group and after three months all her research grants were reassigned to other researchers. In other words, her research career was put on hold since December 2017, immediately after MDACC turned over 10-years records of 23 researchers over to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and 8 months before MDACC received the letters from the National Institute of Health (NIH) in August 2018.Dr. Wu retired from MDACC in early 2019. Several other Chinese American scientists were also forced to either retire or leave. Dr. Wu is one of many victims of ongoing racial profiling. While she is able to use her expertise to combat COVID-19 in China, her family still lives in Houston. This is a vivid example of how profiling results in U.S. loss of talent, competitiveness, and leadership in today's science and technology when we need them the most.

Lessons Learned from Coronavirus Experience in Zhejiang and Hangzhou

As the coronavirus crisis is ending in China in March 2020, the U.S. declared a national emergency. Dr. Wu published an article titled "6 lessons from China's Zhejiang Province and Hangzhou on how countries can prevent and rebound from an epidemic like COVID-19" in the World Economic Forum on March 12, 2020. It offers valuable lessons the global community including the U.S. could learn at national and local levels. They are

Speed and accuracy are the keys to identification and detection
Make the right decisions at the right time, the right place, for the right people
Big data and information technology are important to avoiding a rebound
Evaluate medical resources and response systems. Are we ready for a pandemic? How much stock do we need? Do we have enough health care personnel, and how do we protect them?
Implementation of preventive measures in communities, schools, businesses, government offices and homes can influence the trajectory of this epidemic
Keep the public well informed

2009 Rogers Award Lauds Wu for Cutting-Edge Research

In 2009, MD Anderson published the following report on Dr. Wu receiving the Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence in Research:

“The words ‘visionary’ and ‘revolutionary’ have been used to describe the work of Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at MD Anderson.

“Recipient of the 2008 Julie and Ben Rogers Award for Excellence in Research, Wu has created a molecular epidemiology research program that bridges epidemiology, statistics, laboratory study and clinical research. With a focus on identifying cancer risk factors as well as markers that can predict an individual’s response to treatment, her research is essential in the quest to develop personalized cancer therapies and to improve prevention efforts.

“’These models may help clinicians identify patients who are most and least likely to benefit from treatments, as well as those most likely to develop toxic reactions,’ she says.

“Wu is the principal investigator on nine epidemiological studies funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is a collaborative investigator on many other NIH-funded grants, including a recent multi-institutional study of bladder cancer, which she directed.

“’I see these integrative projects as the best way to translate science into medicine,’ she says. ‘They’re only possible through close teamwork within a large multidisciplinary group of scientists.’

“Though Wu began her medical education in China, she has spent all of her academic career at MD Anderson. She received her medical degree from Shanghai Medical University in 1984 and her Ph.D. in epidemiology from The University of Texas School of Public Health in 1994. She joined MD Anderson in 1995 as an assistant professor and by 2004 was a full professor. She held an Ashbel Smith Professorship from 2006 to 2008. She holds the Betty B. Marcus Chair in Cancer Prevention at MD Anderson and also is on the faculty of The University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

“Wu is internationally recognized for her pioneering work in genetic cancer susceptibility markers and germline genetic variations. One of her major interests is pharmacogenetics, a new field that identifies genetic variations that can help determine why some patients respond better than others to therapeutic drugs.

“Somehow Wu also finds time to lead a multidisciplinary team of 35 people.

“’Mentoring trainees and junior faculty members is a responsibility and a privilege,’ she says. ‘They are the future of science and discovery, and I take great pride in their every success. To me, their success is my success. It is my dream that they will cherish the institution’s core values of caring, integrity and discovery as I do and spread them all over the world when they become independent investigators.’”